


A Fickle Universe

by jediclarinetist



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Short, depresso
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 07:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jediclarinetist/pseuds/jediclarinetist
Summary: After three years in the Rift, Lotor comes back. But he's changed.





	A Fickle Universe

_ After three years in the Rift _ , reflected Allura,  _ he’s changed. _

And it was true, surely—for Lotor’s hair was unkempt, carelessly pulled back in a low ponytail, and his eyes were a bit too bright, as though he were on the verge of tears—this Lotor wasn’t the one she’d abandoned in the Rift. But here he stood, in front of her, and there was hurt in his eyes. 

Allura didn’t know what to say, so she stayed silent.

Finally, he spoke, his voice little more than a rasp. “You left me,” he said, and the look on his face haunted her to her core—its gauntness, his hollowed cheeks and the dark circles beneath his eyes, eyes whose blue irises had gone grey—Allura thought she remembered them being blue—and these eyes held in them a look that said, as clearly if he had spoken aloud,  _ I trusted you, you betrayed me _ . Allura thought that she had as much right, if not more, to say the same to him.

But she didn’t have an excuse to give him. Telling him that Voltron was being pulled apart by the pure Quintessence sounded hollow even in her mind. So she remained silent.

His skin was paler than it had been, paler than a lily yet untouched by the sun. And his hair—it was whiter than an angel cloaked in light, resting on his head like death’s shroud. So deathly pale was Lotor that when he took a step closer to her, she started with fright. But even when he was little more than an arm’s breadth away from her, she did not speak.

“No excuses, Princess?” he practically spat, and she was close enough to see the tears glimmering in his canary-yellow eyes. If his arm were pulled with enough pressure to lift a pencil, it would tear off—this close, it was clear he was coming apart at the seams. The stuffing was beginning to show at each of his joints. 

“No,” she murmured, so low that she could barely hear her own speech.

“Guilty, are we? Perhaps we should have thought of that before abandoning a friend in the most dangerous place in the universe.” His voice was beginning to break, too—he was an overused toy, tossed one too many times into the toy bin by the fickle child that owned the universe. 

And seeing him now, Allura could not hold onto her anger. “I’m sorry,” she whispered simply, and closed the gap between them to wrap him in a gentle hug, afraid that if she touched him the wrong way, he would disintegrate in her arms.

“Could we have been happy, Allura? Could—could  _ I _ have been happy?”

“I don’t know, Lotor. But everything’s gone to pieces.”

“Yeah.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then rested his head on hers. She felt her hair catch his tears.

“Lotor… do you think we could mend it?”

“Hmm?” He stepped back and looked at her quizzically. His eyes were misty, and there were streaks of moisture down his fair cheeks.

“Perhaps there is still room to hope. We are both still alive.”

Pain glinted in his eyes. “Allura, you are the light of my life. As soon as I heard of Altea’s demise, my life lost all purpose. I tried to piece your people back together with the colony. But sometime in all the suffering and all the death, I lost sight of your light. Everything was dark. I couldn’t navigate my way through a universe of shadow. The most horrifying thought came to me then—without you, there was only me. I was completely alone. Imagine living for ten thousand years without a light source to guide your path—I think even you would lose your way in that vast blackness. Once I heard of your return, I came to you as soon as I could. You found the goodness that had long been locked deep within me. Everything was lit again, almost as if the sun had never gone out. But when I looked at the universe I created while you were gone, the universe I crafted in shadow, I saw the destruction I had caused. I was afraid. I didn’t want you to leave me again. The very thought of it terrified me. So I didn’t tell you about the wreckage of my darkness-driven deeds. And I know that was wrong. But then you left me, and I was alone and in the dark.”

And Allura began to cry, for she loved him despite everything, and she knew that he loved her, and that was all that mattered. “Lotor, Lotor, I’ve known you as long as I’ve lived,” she sobbed. “I’ve loved you all my life. I swear to you on everything that matters that you will never be alone again. Forgive me, Lotor, my love, my quintessence, my heart. You are the very marrow in my bones… I’ve lived without you for too long. I will never leave you again.”

His eyes softened a little, and she saw somewhere buried, ten thousand years in the past, a little boy with whom she’d shared her sweets. “I love you, Allura.”

“I love you, too.” 

  
  



End file.
